What You Need to Know Today: September 24

What makes a compelling TV series pilot. A new study by Netflix reveals what episode viewers get hooked on their favorite TV shows. Spoiler Alert: It’s NEVER the pilot. “For How I Met Your Mother, it wasn’t until episode eight that viewers turned into die-hard fans. For Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, it was episode four. And—who knew?—it only took two episodes for Bates Motel,” says Fast Company. One shocking stat Netflix reported was that 70 percent of viewers who watched the hooked episode went on to complete season one. 70 percent! That’s a lot of Netflix and chill. What the data didn’t find was what actually hooked viewers. So let’s speculate…

If you compare watching season one of your favorite TV show to watching a Video Sales Letter (VSL); what compels you to watch the entire first season is probably similar to what compels you to watch the entire VSL. We know telling viewers up front what they will get out of watching the whole VSL is one way to keep viewers watching. Unsurprisingly, this strategy works for TV and movies too. Take Michael Clayton and Bloodline; both (movie and TV show) reveal the end in the first scene/episode, but it’s done in a way that draws the viewer in. Now the viewer has to watch the full movie or series to find out what lead to this conclusion. If I tell you, “By the end of this short video, I’m going to reveal how you can make $10,000 every month for the rest of your life…” there’s a high probability you’ll keep watching to find out… Click here for more VSL hacks.

Can you find the call-to-action button on Google.com? “Your call-to-action has to offer some form of benefit to the customer. Otherwise, your click-through rate will suffer,” says Neil Patel. When most people think of a call-to-action they think of a big bright button that says, “Buy Now” or “Yes, send me the FREE report.” Those are both fine CTAs — the latter is better. But there’s another way you can look at call-to-actions. Neil Patel explains with Google (Skip to Tactic #2).

Chipotle’s taking advantage of the fold. “Above the fold is the upper half of the front page of a newspaper where an important news story or photograph is often located,” says Wikipedia. In digital marketing, it’s important you don’t waste the fold on your website or sales letter. Above the fold should contain a compelling headline and subheadline; no pictures or logos. In traditional businesses, especially fast food, the equivalent of the fold are brown paper bags and white paper cups. Where most fast food franchises waste this valuable real estate on logos, Chipotle is doing something different to keep customer attention. Here’s one of my favorite from the series.

“…he apologized for the lack of adjectives he knew—something of the writer’s trademark—and signed off, in a kind of lovingly avuncular way: “Your Big Friend / E. Hemingway / War Correspondent.” Ernest Hemingway like you’ve never seen before.

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“Women obsess over pockets in clothing precisely because those practical inclusions are so rare. Historically, few dresses and skirts included pockets as part of the default designs. Even women’s pants tend to skimp, either with no pockets at all or tiny non-functional ones… Over the centuries, women’s clothing did contain pockets in the form of discrete, wearable pouches. But around the 1800s, the trend for women’s clothing turned much sleeker, modeled after ancient Greek goddesses, and internal pockets were cut out of the designs.” Read more.

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